Current office computing environments employing shared printers over a local area network (LAN), for example, can leave print data unprotected against unauthorized capture, viewing, alteration, duplication, etc., by unintended recipients. Current applications do not restrict print privileges, for example, by requiring secure printing. Thus, office computing environments can expose print files to risk at various points, such as when the files are on a user's storage device, on the network, in the printer's memory, or after they have been printed in hard copy form.
In addition, the proliferation of wireless networks and printers exposes the print data to even easier passive sniffing than is experienced on wired networks. Packet sniffing utilities have been around since the original release of Ethernet, and they allow data to be captured as it is transmitted over a network. Although packet sniffers are commonly used to help diagnose network problems, they are also regularly used for malicious purposes to capture unencrypted data within network traffic, such as passwords and usernames in so called “passive man in the middle” attacks. Such captured data can then further enable a malicious user to gain access to a system or network.
Printers are also subject to spoofing and interception in so called “active man in the middle” attacks, where another party can receive a file, view and save the file, and then route the file back to the printer. In such cases, an attacker exploits the weakness that a printer does not currently need to be authenticated and masquerades as an intended file recipient in order to intercept a file. Intercepted files can then be modified before being routed back to the printer and printed, or they can be printed multiple times without logging who printed them.